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Billy Crudup
| birth_place = Manhasset, New York, U.S. |alma_mater= UNC Chapel Hill Tisch School of the Arts | occupation = Actor | years_active = 1987–present | spouse = }} William Gaither "Billy" Crudup ( born July 8, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his role in Gypsy, and supporting roles in films including Almost Famous, Big Fish, Mission: Impossible III, Watchmen, Public Enemies, Spotlight, and Alien: Covenant, as well as lead roles in films including Without Limits, Dedication, The Stanford Prison Experiment, and the animated film Princess Mononoke. He appeared in the 2017 superhero film Justice League as Doctor Henry Allen. He has also had an extensive stage acting career, appearing mostly on Broadway. He has been nominated four times for a Tony Award for his acting, and won once, for his role in Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia in 2007. From 1998 to 2005, Crudup was the narrator for "Priceless", a U.S. television ad campaign for MasterCard. Early life Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York. His parents, Georgann (née Gaither) and Thomas Henry Crudup III, divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time. On his father's side, he is a descendant of Congressman Josiah Crudup of North Carolina.Group works to save historic Crudup home site in Kittrell His maternal grandfather was William Cotter "Billy" Gaither, Jr., a well-known Florida trial lawyer, and his maternal grandmother later remarried to Episcopal bishop James Duncan. Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986. Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, LAB! Theatre. He also acted for UNC-STV's most popular show, General College. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1994. Career Film acting Crudup began acting in films such as 1996's Sleepers, 1997's Inventing the Abbotts, and 1998's Without Limits, where he played the role of running legend and Olympian Steve Prefontaine. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of Princess Mononoke, in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played Russell Hammond, the lead guitar player of the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000). In 2006's The Good Shepherd, he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby. The same year, he played a supporting role in Mission: Impossible III. In 2007, he played the leading role of Henry Roth in the film Dedication. Crudup completed filming Watchmen with director Zack Snyder in Vancouver, British Columbia. He portrayed the superhero Doctor Manhattan. He portrayed former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in a TV film about 2008's financial crisis, Too Big to Fail (2011). Stage acting A year after graduating, he made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Crudup received a 2002 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as the title character in The Elephant Man on Broadway, as well as a 2005 nomination for his role as Katurian in the Broadway production of The Pillowman, also starring Jeff Goldblum, which closed on September 18, 2005. From October 2006 through May 2007, he was featured in the first two parts of The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center, playing literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, for which he received a 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He starred in The Metal Children, an off-Broadway play written and directed by Adam Rapp in 2010. In 2011, Crudup received a Tony Award nomination for Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of Arcadia. In August 2013, he co-starred with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in the Harold Pinter play No Man's Land as well as in Waiting for Godot at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The shows transferred to The Cort Theatre in New York City, where they ran in repertory until March 2014. In November 2017, he starred in the world premiere of David Cale's one-man play Harry Clarke at Vineyard Theatre. It moved to the Minetta Lane Theatre the following spring. Other work From 1998 to 2005, Crudup was the narrator for the U.S. television ad campaign "Priceless" for MasterCard. In the ads, the narrator (Crudup) lists the prices of two goods or services, then lists some third, intangible benefit gained from those purchases and concludes, "priceless". He said in 2005 that appearing in the ads "changed my life", in that they gave him the financial freedom to pursue the acting work that he wanted to do. He appeared as Zartan in the 2009 parody video The Ballad of G.I. Joe on the website Funny or Die. Personal life From 1996 to November 2003, Crudup dated actress Mary-Louise Parker. Parker was seven months pregnant with their son, William Atticus Parker, when Crudup left her for actress Claire Danes, then 24 years old. Filmography Film Television Stage Awards Wins * 2007: Tony Award, for The Coast of Utopia * 2001: OFCS Award, for Almost Famous * 2000: Paris Film Festival, for Jesus' Son * 1999: Western Heritage Award, for The Hi-Lo Country * 1998: NBR Award, for The Hi-Lo Country Nominations * 2011: Tony Award, for Arcadia * 2005: Tony Award, for The Pillowman * 2002: Tony Award, for The Elephant Man * 2002: Satellite Award, for Charlotte Gray * 2001: Screen Actors Guild Award, for Almost Famous * 2000: Blockbuster Entertainment Award, for Almost Famous * 2000: MTV Movie Award, for Almost Famous * 1999: Independent Spirit Award, for Jesus' Son References * * * Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:Actors from New York (state) Category:Tisch School of the Arts alumni Category:People from Manhasset, New York Category:Tony Award winners Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Category:1968 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American actors Category:21st-century American actors Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners